A bridge too far?

A bridge too far? The chapter of St. Servaas and its bridge.

In the Middle Ages tolls were an important source of income for monasteries and chapters. This was also true for the chapter of St. Servaas, which received the then still wooden bridge over the river Meuse in Maastricht on 22 June 1139 from the Roman catholic king Koenraad III (1138-1152) as a gift, with all the resulting revenues, under the condition that the bridge would also be repaired from those revenues if necessary. The additional proceeds were to go equally to the provost and his successors and to the refectory of the friars, for the purpose of daily subsistence (charter no. 5).

Pope Innocent II (1130-1143) confirmed the donation of King Koenraad and his spouse Geertrui for the benefit of their salvation and that of their ancestors (charter 6).

For a long time the chapter of St. Servaas enjoyed the benefits of this donation, since the joys far outweighed the burdens as a rule. This changed in the third quarter of the 13th century, when the bridge was so badly battered by flooding and heavy ice, that the bridge had to be rebuilt in its entirety.

The chapter therefore complained to Roman catholic King Rudolf (1273-1291) in 1274 that the income from the original donation was only sufficient to pay for the regular maintenance, but that it would be unreasonable to require the chapter to pay for the complete rebuilding of the bridge, since that would be 'a bridge too far'. They therefore requested him to stipulate that the deacon and chapter should not be required to pay more for the repair of the bridge than the income they received from the bridge, and that they should not be forced to do so by anyone (charter no. 39).

Given the special bond between the chapter of St. Servaas and the German emperors, Roman catholic King Rudolf decided to reaffirm the original grant in 1282. On this occasion he confirmed that no one would be exempt from paying a proper and customary toll, and that the proceeds thereof always were to be used for the benefit of the bridge and of St. Servaas Church (charter no. 46).

Apparently, all these privileges were not sufficient to thoroughly repair the wooden bridge, resulting in its untimely collapse on 12 July 1275 during a devout procession of the deacon and chapter of the Church of Our Lady in Maastricht and the choir clergy in religious attire and carrying relics. It was a dramatic event in which, according to contemporaries, about 400 men and women drowned in the river Meuse. This created an accute need to rebuild the bridge. The big question was: how could this be paid for?

The toll revenues had obviously dried up as a result of the bridge collapse. Consequently, the funds for the reconstruction were not sufficient. It was therefore decided to finance the reconstruction through the sale of church indulgences, a fairly common practice in the Middle Ages, which was used in the Renaissance to finance the construction of St. Peter's in Rome and later severely criticised by Luther, among others. Through an official letter of indulgence, an ecclesiastical "indulgence" (=forgiveness of sins) of forty days was finally promised to all those who actually contributed financially to the rebuilding in stone of the bridge. This indulgence letter was sealed by 19 archbishops and bishops at Orvieto, on 29 January 1284 (charter no. 51).

The new stone bridge that was finally built between 1275 and 1298, partly thanks to this ingenious religious-financial construction, consisted of nine semicircular arches of Namur stone and a wooden arch on the Wyck side, which could easily be dismantled in case of war. This bridge is still the direct predecessor of the Servaas Bridge, rebuilt and widened several times in the 20th century, which is now referred to in the vernacular as "de Aw Brök" (= the old bridge).